🚀 go-pugleaf

Both posted and e-mailed, as my news server seems to be choking every
now and then. Maybe it's because of my lengthy messages? Ps. When I
write in uppercase, I am not shouting in anger but underscoring the
most important things.


Matthew Murray <mmu...@cc.wwu.edu> wrote:

>>To each his own, but... why? I think it is one the very best RPGs I've
>>ever played. The only real 'flaw' I find in it was that the graphics
>>and audio were not impressive at all even back when it was released,
>>but... duh. It had a great combat system, good story, lots of things
>>to do (sub quests) etc.
>
>Okay, I have >got< to ask.  What exactly did you LIKE about the
>combat system?

I'll give you both a short and long answer:

Short: It didn't have all those serious flaws that so many other CRPGs
have in their combat systems. It was a well thought out combat system,
unlike in e.g. Ultima 7.


Long: I will list the things that I feel are so much better than in
many big name RPGs:

1) You can move the characters "freely" in the combat area and it does
matter where exactly your characters and the enemies are. In many PC
RPGs and also console RPGs like Final Fantasies your characters and
enemies are just standing in rows or some formation and hit each
others from there, at best there is some obscure option like "advance"
for the back row characters. Sorry, but that feels so fake to me.
In Betrayal at Krondor, Ultima III or Fallout you will actually have
to go after the enemy before you can use your short-range weapons.
I like this "action point" combat system the best, like in BaK and
Fallout.


2) Related to the previous one: when using long range weapons like
bows or some spells, you must make sure there are none of your party
members in the line of fire, otherwise you may hit them instead of the
enemy. For example in Ultima 3, Dungeon Master and Eye of the 
Beholder 2 your back row characters can freely shoot arrows and cast
fireballs at the enemies _through_ the front row party members. FAKE.
(I'm not 100% certain about Ultima III though, but I think your arrows
or spells would never hit your party members when the arrow/spell was
travelling towards an enemy. I could remember wrong though.)


3) The combat was non-realtime, which makes it more strategic. I like
this better than real time combat system like in Dungeon Master,
EOB1-2, Lands of Lore (those four were actually semi-realtime), Ultima
Underworld, Ultima 7 etc. 

Ultima 7 is probably the worst example, the combat was so messy in it
because of being in realtime, your party members kept killing each
other with the more powerful weapons etc. In Ultima Underworld it was
handled pretty well, but the drawback was that UUW's combat system is
suitable only for single-player CRPGs (unless you have party members
which will fight completely on their own, but Ultima 7 just showed
what a mess that can be). And it is more about action than strategy
really in UUW.


4) The combat system allows you to change your actions DURING a combat
round. I don't care if the "choose the actions for all your party
members and sit back to see the outcome" style comes from real paper
and pen RPGs, but it DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE and FEELS FAKE. This flaw
is in so many CRPGs, for example Wasteland, Wizardy Gold, earlier
Final Fantasies, Bard's Tale series (if I remember right) etc.

Let's say you tell your NinjaMaster to kick the leftmost Slimeworm.
The Slimeworm moves to a different square or escapes the combat before
NinjaMaster's turn. What does NM do in his own turn? "Right, the
Slimeworm is now out of my reach. Oh well, the player told me to hit
that square anyway, so I guess I'll just kick in the air. Poof!".

In games like Betrayal at Krondor and Ultima III you can change the
actions during the round to suit the new situations better, which
makes so much more sense to me. Oh, so the worm moved. I guess I will
make my NinjaMaster to either go after it, throw a shuriken at it, or
even go after a whole another Slimeworm instead of just kicking air
for no purpose.


5) Your weapons and armor wear down in combat. For some reason only
few CRPGs seem to have this besides BaK, namely Ultima Underworld and
maybe Darklands from what I've heard.


6) Some things that just make sense to me, for example your spell
caster can't cast spells if there are enemies in the nearby squares.
How this would relate to real life is that if an enemy fighter was
next to your spell caster, he would slice him with his sword before
the magician could even start his chanting. This kind of relates how
you must be relatively undisturbed before you can use spells.


7) The magic has area of effect, ie. if there are your party members
near one of the enemies, it may not be such a hot idea to send a mega
size fireball at that particular enemy. Yes I know some other RPGs
have this too (Eye of the Beholder 2 for example), but many don't.


8) The combats are not fully random combats like in e.g. Wasteland,
Final Fantasies etc. There are BOTH ambushes which you couldn't
foresee, but usually you know you are about to enter a fight, thus you
can even avoid it if you want to. Makes more sense to me.


9) Related to number 8: There usually isn't an endless supply of
enemies and encounters in an area like it seems to be especially in
those random combat RPGs. It makes more sense to me that if you have
been fighting for half an hour in ten different encounters in a
relatively small area, the number of encounters in that area should
become rarer all the time. This is another thing that makes the combat
seem to have a real purpose (get rid of enemies in an area) other than
just trying the get the stats up.



I'm sure there are other things too, but those I can think of now.

Some people have complained how the combats in BaK were "unbalanced"
or too hard. I agree some of the encounters felt very hard (but not
even near impossible!), but so they did in some of those earlier
Ultimas. I like that, because it gives you a real feel of
accomplishment when you finally can kill those pesky enemies guarding
the graveyard you've been trying to beat for several times already,
after you found that magical enhancement for your armor and weapons
and one of your fighters found that better sword from one of the
hidden riddle chests.


So there. ;-)



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